


Fine Print

by anexistence



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blackdonald, Coffee Shop, College AU, F/F, F/M, Library, Modern AU, dorlene, i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-05 04:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14036160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anexistence/pseuds/anexistence
Summary: “Oh, God,” he mutters, “it’s you.”Lily, at least, has the decency not to scoff at his statement. Instead, she replies with a polite, “Of course, just my luck.”“I can’t believe he set me up with the local lunatic,” James Potter smirks, though he can’t help thinking the girl in front of him looks beautiful in the dim light of the restaurant.





	1. wine not.

Lily Evans lives in a quaint apartment overlooking the busy street. The small balcony she often spends hours reading on floats rather precariously four floors above the busy sidewalk. In all honesty, the balcony is rather sturdy, and is inspected at least twice a year. This however does nothing for the nicknames Lily’s friends assign to it. Sirius is the worst among them, and the only one who vehemently refuses to step outside onto the aforementioned balcony, which only works against him because Lily forbids him from smoking inside of the apartment.

“I only suffer extensive periods without cigarettes for you,” he mentions one day when Mary is expectedly late to their Tolkien marathon. “You know this, right?” Lily rolls her eyes at her friend, because—yes, of course—she knows he only makes this great sacrifice for her, but somehow it does not come off as a compliment which is inevitably what Sirius wants it to sound like.

A buzzing noise delays her retort. “Thank you for not stinking up my living space,” she says and reaches for her phone. As suspected Mary’s text reads she will be another five minutes late which, as Lily knows, in Mary’s world means at least ten minutes, if not fifteen.

Remus and Peter promised to be there as well but the two have—as Mary predicted—cancelled last minute. The news barely surprised Lily when Remus texted her mere hours ago. She would resent him for leaving her to handle Sirius and Mary—who always gang up on the third wheel—on her own, but the apology is so genuine, and he has been rather sick lately, all the way through the exams. Peter, on the other hand, is a sly traitor and she will not forgive him so easily.

“How long do we have to wait,” Sirius asks without even glancing at her annoyed expression.

“Mary says five minutes,” she replies, and he does not need to hear the hint of annoyance in her voice to know what that means.

Instead, Sirius chuckles. “I might just have to step out onto that death-trap you call a balcony to have a smoke while we wait.”

“I’m irritated enough to join you.”

“I’m afraid you can’t, that ledge would break under our joint weight.”

“Are you calling me fat?”

“Muscle weighs more than fat,” he pokes at her side, which is most certainly not all muscle.

“Are you calling me muscular,” Lily frowns in amusement.

“I’m calling you a strong woman.”

She chuckles, loving the banter they always seem to fall into. “I’m not going to shag you.”

“Ew, Lily, I would never have sex with you.”

“Well,” a smirk grows on her lips, “ _now_ I’m offended.”

“I played myself,” Sirius accepts the loss gracefully. “Come on, let’s test our luck.”

A gust of wind washes over her face as Lily opens the wide sliding door. The spring evenings still get rather chilly, and she appreciates the gesture when Sirius hands her his leather jacket. Lily inquires if he would like it back upon noticing the goose bumps rise on his forearm. A chuckle escapes him as he steps out to join her, leaning against the wall. The two of them barely fit onto the miniscule balcony, and Lily does not own an ashtray so they make do with a small candleholder whose main purpose for that evening becomes embodying an ashtray. It does the boy very well. Sirius refuses to step away from the wall even after Lily jumps up and down a few times to prove to him the resilience of her most beloved space. She gives up soon enough and stubbornly leans against the rusty railing. With a hint of genuine worry in his voice, and in between two drags from his cigarette, Sirius warns her about leaning against old rusty railings. In response the redhead presses her behind against the railing more heavily simply to observe the hint of terror on his face.

“It’s a sturdy ol’ railing,” Lily smiles softly, tapping it lightly.

“If you die I won’t hold a speech.”

“Remus will,” Lily says lighting a cigarette of her own. “And you know I’ve always liked him better, even if he does bail on our movie marathons too often.”

“Not more than Pete does.”

“Peter is neither here nor there,” she scrunches up her nose. “We haven’t hung out with him last semester.”

“Remus likes to bring in some sad strays,” Sirius shrugs.

“Well, I don’t mind. Look at you.”

“I am a delight.”

“Precisely,” she puts out the butt of the cigarette in the ashtray.

Halfway through Sirius’ second cigarette another text from Mary arrives and Lily’s phone makes the familiar buzzing noise, vibrating on a glass coffee table. She walks off inside, in spite of Sirius’ fears that as soon as she leaves the balcony would fall to its demise thus killing him at a tragically young age. This, he claims, would be a shame because he has yet to make a modelling career of his dashingly good looks. For a second Lily contemplates tossing him over, but murder would certainly look bad on her resume and Sirius is her favourite person, save for Mary and perhaps Remus. Nevertheless, he is the only person always available to join her for coffee, and it would not do her well to lose a mate so early on in the year. So, she steps inside and closes the balcony door to teach him a lesson.

_At the grocery store down the street, do we need more food/wine?_

Sirius is knocking lightly, yet urgently, on the glass door and promising revenge as Lily types her reply.

_Get more popcorn, we have enough wine_

When Lily finally opens the balcony door, not a minute after she closed it, Sirius leaves the half-smoked cigarette in the small ashtray and bolts inside. He stalks off, in what she can only presume is supposed to be an upset manner, to the bathroom while announcing he has to take a piss.

“Please don’t miss the toilet, and put the seat back down,” she yells after him and he flips her off because, as she well knows, he has never done a single bad thing to her bathroom. Save for that time he broke the toilet seat while hooking up with a shockingly attractive brunette. The only modicum of defence he offered back then was that she forbid him from using her room—which any sane person would do, Lily said—and Remus was in between flats, and thus occupying his usually empty apartment.  

Mary lets herself in thirty seconds later to the faint sound of Sirius’ pissing. She rolls her eyes at the bathroom door and offers her friend a wide smile. Lily would have been surprised at the two additional bottles of wine she brought, but she has learned that very few things surpass Mary’s avid love for good red wine. Instead, she grabs the patterned reusable bag from her hands – Mary is big on ecology, and Lily respects it and wishes she could be more like her in that aspect.

Mary quickly slips out of her sneakers. “It was discounted,” she walks towards the small kitchen where Lily is already putting the wine in the fridge.

“Hey, I’m not complaining.” Lily presses extra hard on the fridge door lest it stays open. Sirius promised he would have Remus check it out, though both she and Mary doubt that just because he is studying electrical engineering makes Remus a certified fridge expert. Remus silently agrees with the two of them, but he can always try tightening some screws.

Mary is already reaching for her glass of wine while Lily puts the first bag of popcorn into the microwave. “You were giving me the look.”

“The look?”

The toilet flushes, “Hello.”

“Ew,” is Mary’s reaction.

“Missed you, too.”

“You didn’t wash your hands, you pig.”

“The bathroom sink is out of order,” he retorts, pushing past the two of them to reach the kitchen sink, which can not fully be described as functional as the pipe needs a solid shove to get it to work. Mary offers him a half-hearted apologetic shrug as the popcorn start going off inside Lily’s retro looking microwave, and in return, Sirius sprinkles some water on her before wiping his hands. “Oh, good,” he rummages through the food left in the cotton bag. “You bought croissants.”

A smirk plays on Mary’s lips as she directs her focus on pouring a full glass of wine. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of your favourite pastry.”

“I would marry you,” he says, and Lily thinks there is even a dose of sincerity in the statement. “I would,” Sirius assures, “if it weren’t a crime against humanity. Or at least the female population.” Lily leaves and settles down on her comfortable couch. Oftentimes their flirting gets out of hand, and everyone else is destined to feel like a third wheel. It is moments like those when she regrets not having Remus, or even Peter, around. And it is moments like those when she reminds herself to call them both traitors the next time she sees them.

“Who says I would marry you?” Mary asks, and sips on the wine.

Lily can imagine the way Sirius would frown at her apparently offensive question, and if she were participating in their obnoxious flirt fest, she might even feel inclined to remind him that he can not possibly become a model with frown lines all over his face. Only, it would only be half-funny because she found out his secret cosmetic products stash one night, a while ago, when his fairly bigger apartment was used as a movie marathon place and Lily allowed herself to explore the contents of his bathroom. It was impressive, even back then, and could easily rival hers, so she doubts Sirius would be getting wrinkles any time soon.

“No one in their right mind would pass up on marrying me,” he says, but Mary decides to put an end to the flirting, much to Lily’s relief. It may have had something to do with an imploring look her red haired friend sent her over Sirius’ unassuming shoulder that prompted the brunette to join her on the couch.

She sips on her wine, and offers the bottle to Lily who happily pours herself a glass. “Oh, and won’t you be a doll and fetch the nachos and the popcorn?” The sweet smile she directs at Sirius informs him that _‘no’_ is not a plausible answer, so he obliges and walks towards the two of them hands full of food. Though there is room on Lily’s left and Mary’s right, he decides to shimmy in between them.

“Fatass,” Lily mutters shifting towards the end of the couch.

“Why do you insist on insulting my ass? I swear this has to be the fourth time you’ve mentioned it today,” the scandalized tone of his voice is dampened by the consequent crunching of nachos as he dips them in salsa and shoves two in his mouth.

Mary tosses the remote over to Lily and, expectedly, takes yet another sip of her wine. The glass in her hand is nearly empty, but the smile on her face is a bit wider. “It’s a fine ass, though.”

The crunching of nachos speeds up alongside Sirus’ jaw movement. He finishes the bite in a record time and smirks, “Oh, is it?”

“You two need to shag already,” is all Lily can say, now that she is stuck with the two for the night. “Just not on my bed… or the toilet.”

“We can’t,” they reply in unison.

Prompted by Lily’s confused look Mary goes on to explain. “We’re building it up, it’s fun.”

“The longer the flirtation lasts,” Sirius dips a nacho in cheese, “the better the sex.”

“You two are insane.”

Mary sips on her beloved wine as the intro music starts playing. “We’re not.”

Sirius can do nothing but nod for a while, as he devours yet another pair of nachos. “Besides, _you_ need a shag. You haven’t had a single date since… well, as long as I’ve known you.”

“Mhm,” the betrayal in the air is palpable as Mary agrees with him.

“Shut up, and watch the movie,” Lily mutters, and the conversation is dropped. Though, Lily has to agree, she does not necessarily need a shag but a good ravishing would do her wonders. Or at least an entertaining date. By the second movie she grows annoyed with the two, not only due to their incessant flirting, but for reminding her just how boring her life was. The wine helps, and by the third bottle both Mary and Sirius are finally too focused on the movie to pay attention to one another.

Around five in the morning, Lily wakes up to Mary nudging her. Sirius is awake, and she kisses him on the cheek, in a sleepy drunk stupor then wobbles off to Lily’s room where, later on, she inevitably hogs all of the blankets and takes up most of the large bed. After rubbing the sleep from her eyes Lily goes about cleaning the dishes left behind from their crazy night. There is not much, and Sirius helps carry most of it over to the kitchen.

“Do you need help,” Sirius asks, and she knows it is not merely out of curtesy, he has helped her a fair amount of times. Once he even washed all of the dishes after she organized a dinner.  

There are only a couple bowls, and the three plates they ate pizza off that she absolutely needs to wash, lest they crust over by the morning. The glasses can wait, “I don’t think so, no.”

He shrugs, stretching a bit, “If you say so.” Though he does not leave, instead he hovers around as she finishes up in the kitchen.

“You don’t have to keep me company,” she means it.

“I want to, plus the bus leaves in fifteen minutes,” a tired smirk graces his face. “And I have a feeling that pizza we ate was bad, so I might have to throw up before I go. We’re never ordering from that place again.”

“You too?”

“My stomach is all,” he motions with his hands in a complex manner.

“Yeah, same.” Lily says, collapsing onto the couch and reaching for what little wine they had left.

Sirius joins her, and she lets him light a cigarette inside too tired to complain, and not bothered enough to care.

“Just you wait,” the smoke escapes his lips as he talks. “When James gets here we’ll only ever eat homemade pizza.”

“Your imaginary hot friend you want to set me up with?”

“He’s not imaginary.”

“Whatever you say,” she grabs the cigarette, stealing it from his nearly limp fingers.

“He’s very real, and can make fantastic pizza,” Sirius takes the cigarette back, but not before he burns his palm on the tip of it. “Shit. Anyway, he’s an awful cook in general, really, but his mother adores Italian so…”

“He sure does sound too good to be true.”

“You’re horrible, Lily.”

She would smile if she could move a muscle in her face, “Why isn’t he here?”

“James?” Lily nods. “He is, uh, a year younger? Well, not really, you two are nearly the same age but they’ve sent him off to school abroad, for a while, so he fell behind somehow… I’m not sure how the educational system works there, but he is coming to England to study after it. Soon. Very soon,” Sirius attempts a wink, but the most he manages is a slow and steady blink.

“You’ll miss the bus,” her voice is soft, and she knows he has no idea when the bus leaves. Or if there is even a bus at that time of night, or at all.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Fine,” they both knew this would happen from the moment he sat down. “But you’re making breakfast tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He salutes but Lily already has her back turned to him and she is shutting the bedroom door. Left alone in the living room, Sirius collapses on the small couch, fully aware of the backache he is risking the next morning.

Lily knows she should not be awake when the smell of something delicious burning is what wakes her the following morning. Her body feels numb, and she doubts she slept longer than a couple of hours, but the smell is there, and it scares her. It takes some time for her to gain full consciousness, and an extra effort for her brain to—on top of waking up on an early Sunday morning—come to a conclusion that ignoring the situation would possibly leave her homeless. She was yet to trust Sirius with her kitchen while she was not around. Groggily, she rolls towards the end of her bed and, quite unceremoniously though no one is there to see it, plops herself on the floor.

Lily sits at the foot of her bed for an added minute, she cannot truly tell how much time she wastes trying to come to completely, but the sirens going off inside her head are still muted by the lack of sleep she got the night before. It is only the absence of sleep-talking Mary in her bed that jolts her back to reality, and stops her from dozing off on the cold floor. It is the apparent disappearance of Mary, who misses most of her early classes because mornings—as she nicely puts it—came from the ninth circle of hell, that forces Lily to get up and abandon all hope for extra sleep.

Her vision goes dark for those uncomfortable five seconds, and she leans against the wall rocking back and forth while her brain regains its power. Then, with much strength needed she opens the bedroom door.

“Oh. My! FUCK!” It is astounding the level of decibel that a tired girl can produce upon being presented with her best friend’s half-naked form saddled on top of her other best friend’s equally naked body on a Sunday morning.

“You didn’t lock the door?!” Sirius screeches at Mary, who is now standing a fair distance away from him.

Lily tosses a piece of cloth—Sirius’ t-shirt—at her friend. “You would lock me in my room to shag him” she points an accusatory finger at the man in question, “in my apartment?! And you!” She addresses Sirius, her finger still pointed, quite menacingly at him, “You have seduced her with your… your seducing ways.”

“We didn’t even do anything,” Sirius mutters. “And she came onto me.”

“That’s not true,” Mary says, still covering her naked torso with the shirt. “You’ve made me pancakes. That was _so nice_ of you.”

“I made us all pancakes!”

“I need coffee,” Lily sighs, “nice boobs, Mary, but please put the shirt _on_.”

Sirius remains unclothed, which he is more than content with Lily assumes. He must enjoy parading his abs around Mary, who has clearly lost her mind due to lack of sleep, and an abundance of wine.

“You’ve burnt my pancakes,” he sounds less than content. “Or at least, the two in the pan.”

Mary shrugs her shoulders, as if she was not the one to start it all. As if she did not wake up minutes before nine in the morning, mouth parched and in need of water, while her stomach grumbled due to the wonderful aroma that filled the entire flat.

And there he stood, in the middle of Lily’s tiny kitchen, wearing nothing but his jeans, and baking pancakes for her, at least that is how Mary’s brain interpreted it. She could have had an orgasm right then and there, or so she thought. Her sleep deprived, clearly insane form, made its way to the object of her very strong, very untameable desire. He greeted her, voice raspy and a smirk on his lips, and there, suddenly, went all the resolve Mary had ever held in her entire small frame. It disappeared, as if she never had any. If Sirius had been wearing a shirt, the girl would have tugged him down towards her, but—working with what little she had on her hands—she merely lunged herself towards him until he was leaning against the counter and had nowhere to go. Sirius muttered a soft ‘ouch’, as his hip collided with the counter, and she had him where she wanted him, leaning against the counter. This way, once Mary stood up on her tiptoes she could just barely reach his lips and, with her hands sneaking around his neck, pull him closer. The details of getting to the couch and losing her shirt seemed quite blurry, though she was quite certain they have spent at least ten minutes in the kitchen first.

“She seduced me,” Sirius assures Lily, once Mary has left to take a shower. He would joke about it being a cold one, but he is not certain just how pissed Lily is. The toilet seat fiasco had been an accident, but shag attempt on one’s prised couch might be a higher offence. It certainly had to be a higher offence, Sirius concluded. “Pancake?” He offers her the blueberry one, and Lily rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles before taking the first bite.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry,” Lily reiterates. She shoves the rest of the pancake in her mouth.

“What for?”

For at least thirty seconds they stand in silence as Lily chews. “That you two did not shag… again.”

“Oh,” he is sorry too. Probably not as sorry as Mary is, but that could be his ego talking.

“And please go take a shower after her,” she says while piling more pancakes onto her plate. Sirius is baffled, and confused, but mostly glad that he will live to see another day. “A cold one.” The glance she directs at his crotch, which he thought he hid quite well, is accompanied by a very amused smirk on her lovely, tired face.

“I hate you,” he mouths as Mary steps out of the bathroom wrapped in a small towel. “And you, too.”


	2. wine don't you kiss me?

A five-minute walk from the university is a small, old bakery-turned-café, or more precisely both of these all rolled into one. No one can quite place what it is. Sometimes it will open as early as 6:30 in the morning, engulfing the small corner of the street with the aroma of freshly baked pastries. Other times it will remain closed until the owner—an old Dutch lady, Nora—stumbles towards the entrance door around ten. The shop fills up in a matter of moments no matter the time.

Mary’s heard from a friend of a friend, who heard it from a girl she had two classes with, that Nora’s husband was a renown French baker who, at the peak of his career, opened as many as twenty boulangeries and patisseries in the Netherlands. When he died, rumour has it she sold the lot of them and moved to England, where she opened the one small shop right beneath the flat she lived in, and lived off the piles of cash she acquired by selling the rest.

Being a romantic at heart, Mary chose to believe the story entirely, and Lily and her would often concoct wild scenarios about Nora’s life, none of which could ever possibly be true.

“You haven’t talked to him?” Lily asks, and Mary does not want to feel bad about it, but she can’t help herself. They are tucked away in a distant corner, squeezed in between two larger groups of students. Every minute one of them glances longingly at their usual place where currently two businessman are sitting, sticking out like sore thumbs among all the students.

“Nope,” Mary’s cocoa is cold, and the cake she ordered is not making her feel any better either. It is a flourless chocolate rum cake, one of her favourites, and it ought to have lifted her mood but somehow it fails miserably.

“Hm,” Lily’s order rarely changes—vanilla latte and a white chocolate chip cookie—but today she, too, opts for a boozy cake, as the two of them like to call it. The occasion calls for it. “If it makes you feel any better, I feel like he’s been avoiding me too.”

“Really,” Mary’s wide brown eyes reflect hope and relief.

“But he has texted.”

“Oh.”

Lily is upset. In fact, she is positively fuming. When she introduced Sirius, nearly six months ago, to her high school best friend, she made him promise something. It was not an explicit deal, nor did she force him to sign any legal documents, though her mother—who was an accomplished lawyer—joked she should have, considering his dashing looks and reputation. It was implied that he was not to treat her friends, especially not Mary, in any way that may cause any level of emotional harm or distress. 

Mary’s quiet demeanour and contemplating face are enough inclination for Lily to know that Sirius has crossed the line. But he refuses to meet her in person, and thus she can hardly punch his arm twice—once because he deserved it, the second time for good measure—before talking his ear off about him being a complete arse.

“He’s an immature twat, Mary,” she offers a mild insult. After all, he is still a good friend of hers, no matter how much of an idiot he is being. “Maybe he just…”

“Needs time,” she does not sound convinced. “I mean, okay. I can understand that. But everything was great up until Sunday.”

“When you jumped the guy.”

“We’ve been flirting for months!”

Lily knows this. “I know. I’ve been there. The whole time.”

Over the edge of an oversized mug, Mary offers her a small smile, “My apologies.”

“It’s fine,” Lily says, and it really is. It would be best if they just stopped their games, so Lily could rest. “So, the last thing he told you was?”

“I’ve told you,” she sighs, but pulls out her phone nonetheless. “ _Great weekend, will def make you more pancakes next time… heart, heart, kiss, kiss, smiling cat emoji, wink._

“And then I texted him: _maybe I’ll make you some pancakes, kiss, heart, kiss, tongue out, tongue out._ ”

Lily nods, “Followed by silence?”

“Yes. You don’t think I overdid it with the tongue out emojis?”

“Oh, surely,” they both chuckle. “The tongue out emoji is the one thing that can scare any man away.”

“You’re a horrible friend,” Mary whines.

“I’m paying for your sadness food.”

“I love you—oh!” She jumps suddenly as her phone vibrates in her hand, nearly spilling the rest of her cocoa over the cakes and Lily’s phone. Her eyes are wide and glued to the screen. There is a bit of a manic look to her face.

“Oh?”

The text arrives three days late, and though her initial reaction is excitement, Mary paces herself. She does not want to open it to be disappointed, nor does she want to reply straight away.

“It’s Sirius,” she mouths, barely above a whisper.

“And?”

_I spy with my prettiest eye… are you and Lily pancaking without me :(_

“What. A. Moron,” if Sirius weren’t around, she would show the text to Lily, then continue to insult his existence for the following ten minutes.

Three days after she sent him the text, and he replies so nonchalantly. She has spent three days pondering over possible catastrophe scenarios, and wondering—often out loud, to Lily—if maybe he disliked that her boobs were not only small, but also a bit lopsided. Of course, Lily told her—as all best friends ought to do—that her own boobs seemed to be a bit wonky too. But Mary cared very little about that, because at least Lily had more of them, so it did not count, or at least that’s what she told her.

Lily is amused by the obvious mental control her friend seems to be exerting in order to contain her impending emotional outburst. If she were a bad friend, perhaps she would even laugh at her, but she cannot bring herself to do so now. Not after having had to convince her there was absolutely nothing wrong with her breasts.

“Hullo,” Sirius arrives in all his glory, clad in a leather jacket with a pair of aviators propped on his nose despite the mostly cloudy weather. He ruffles Mary’s hair, and takes a seat next to her. “Isn’t today a great day?”

“Superb,” Mary smiles.

She continues smiling as Sirius drapes his arm around her chair, “I can’t stay for long. Have some errands to run. I just wanted to drop by and say hello.”

It takes all her strength for Lily not to laugh at Mary’s panicked expression, and Sirius’ complete oblivion to it. She watches as he aimlessly twirls a strand of her hair around his finger, and notices the way Mary gawks her eyes at her as if to say _‘what the fuck’_ while reaching for her cocoa.

“So,” she starts, seeing as her friend became temporarily mute from shock, and possibly anger. “You’ve been busy, then?”

“Very,” Sirius assures the two of them.

“You’re quite informative,” Mary quips. Her voice sounds bitter, and she hopes that the apparently blind idiot sitting next to her does not notice the hostility behind it. Or perhaps she hopes that he does.

“It’s top secret,” he runs a finger down her neck. “I’ll tell you all about it… in private.”

“Will you now,” she asks, glancing at Lily, who decides to observe the two over the edge of her text book, and is ignoring the meaningful glances her friend is trying to send her way.

Mary’s question receives no response as Sirius shuffles away from her and gets up. He stretches, and the hem of his shirt rises just above the waistband of his dark jeans. If she were not furious with him, Mary would just jump him for the second time. However, her righteous anger—topped with a fair amount of confusion—prevents her treacherous body from acting on its very physical, animalistic urges.

She cannot control the lip bite, and Lily calls her out on that while the two watch the man in question walk away.

“Oh, stop drooling,” she slams her book shut, which brings Mary out of her daze. “We’re mad at him, remember?”

“I hate him,” she exclaims, though she does not really.

“I honestly doubt that.”

“No, I genuinely do. I can’t handle this.”

“Fine,” Lily says with determination. “Tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow, we will go out, and we will get drunk, and you will leave your phone at home, lest you fall victim to your horrible desires.”

Mary resents the suggestion that she would fail to control herself. She is, after all, quite upset with the idiot in question, and that would be enough for her to completely ignore him until the end of the week, or at least Saturday.

This, of course, is precisely what she tells Lily when her phone is confiscated on Friday while the two of them are shopping for wine. Mary protests and whines, piling another bottle of wine into the cart. But her efforts are futile, and Lily has to point out that she has just been stalking Sirius’ Instagram whilst purchasing wine, which indicates that her heart is just not in the right place. Although Mary follows the accusations by picking out Lily’s favourite red wine, she is adamant and hides the phone at the bottom of her purse where it stays until the following morning when Lily meets a hungover Mary for coffee with the sole purpose of returning the abducted phone.

“We should have gotten more wine,” Mary says in between two flights of stairs leading up to Lily’s flat, while carrying three bottles that clink together precariously.

“Oh, yes,” Lily is right behind her, carrying some frozen food and snacks. “The four of us probably need at least three gallons of wine.”

“Well, you know how Dorcas gets.” Dorcas barely drinks wine, but Lily omits pointing this out. Mary is well aware of the fact, she is just being difficult because with Lily keeping her precious phone hostage, she will be unable to document their girls’ night, and Mary lives for Instagram stories. “Also, you could give me my phone back, just make sure to take it away by the time we drink enough for me to become stupid.”

“So, you admit it,” Lily smiles gleefully as they reach the entrance to the flat. “Ha!”

“I don’t, but it’s best to be safe.” The defence she offers is weak, and the battle has already been lost. She grumbles audibly as Lily lets her inside, and makes a beeline for the kitchen, where she stores the wine in the fridge. According to Mary, drinking lukewarm wine is one of life’s greatest sins.

The flat is a mess, Lily had no time to clean up that morning, nor the day before. Her shoes are strewn across the living area, and she hasn’t eaten at home since Tuesday, which means the trash is filled with empty takeout containers, whilst the dishwasher her parents gladly donated from the small Evans vacation home stands full of clean, unused dishes. Most of her clothes, thankfully, are either spread over the armchair closest to her bedroom, or jumbled into an indistinguishable pile of things on the unused side of her bed.

“This is a mess,” she says sadly, and Mary agrees a bit too quickly for her liking, but makes up for it by volunteering to clean up around the kitchen. Lily shoves most of her clothes into a hamper and calls it a day. Half of it is not even dirty, but sometimes postponing chores is the best option. If Mary judges her for it—which she does, just a bit—, she does not voice that opinion. 

Dorcas and Marlene arrive half an hour early, and Lily reprimands them, “Guests are supposed to arrive half an hour late. _Late_!”, for disrespecting the arrangement the four of them have made. She continues to parade around the apartment in her underwear, searching for the components of outfit she came up with for the night. By the third time she passes through the small living area in vain, Lily starts to regret throwing half of her wardrobe in the hamper.

“Can you get dressed, please,” Dorcas says from her spot on the couch.

“I can’t, no,” Lily walks out of her room, the messy bun on top of her head falling apart. From the corner of her eye she can see Mary snickering, a glass of wine in her hand. It’s Dorcas’—and Marlene’s, for that matter—fault that they have to watch her half naked. If they could behave like normal people and be half an hour late instead of being half an hour early, they would never have had to learn the colour of her favourite underwear.

“That’s a cute bra,” at least Marlene is polite.

“Thanks,” undoing all of her previous hard work, Lily brings the hamper full of discarded—and occasionally dirty—clothes out to the middle of the living room and flips it upside down. The small pile of clothes she deemed dirty now sits by the bottom of her feet. Dorcas decides to completely ignore her, and joins Marlene in the kitchen where the blonde is reading the instructions on how to prepare a frozen pizza.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t find my top, Mary.”

“Which one?”

“The navy one!”

“Oh,” Mary offers, and if she were a little less stressed, Lily might have realized what that implies.

“What,” she asks, paying very little attention to her friend, but rather sifting through the clothes on the floor.

“Ahm…”

“You’re supposed to wait for it to defrost a bit,” Marlene hisses at Dorcas somewhere in the kitchen.

“Well, Lily, you see,” Mary approaches her tentatively.

“I’ve done this literally a thousand times, I think I know how it works,” Dorcas replies, annoyed.

The redhead turns slowly to face her friend, “What?”

“Don’t look at me like that!”

“Like what?” Lily narrows her eyes because she _remembers._. She knows now where her navy blouse is.

“Like you want to toss me over that balcony of yours.”

“I want my blouse, Mary,” she sighs. “This is why I can’t lend you things, I _never_ get them back.”

“I forgot!”

“You forget _everything_!”

“I don’t mean to… I just— my brain has too many thoughts.”

Mary is too adorable to stay mad at, so Lily just rolls her eyes. “I’ll wear my black dress,” she informs her before stalking off to her room.

A sudden crash draws Mary’s attention to the kitchen where Marlene and Dorcas are both frozen in shock. At their feet and all over the light coloured kitchen tiles, are two broken bottles of wine. The glass shards are soaked in the contents of the bottles, and both of their socks, alongside most of the kitchen counters, are coloured red. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, guys,” Lily returns from her room. “Now what are we going to drink?”

“I told you it does need to defrost,” Marlene repeats instead of answering her, showing Dorcas—who is positively fuming—the instructions at the bottom of the packaging.

 

* * *

 

An hour and a half later, the evening finds them at a spacious, funky downtown bar, because Marlene insists on going there. Mary complains she is overdressed, Lily worries she is underdressed _—“My dress barely covers my butt”_ —and Dorcas does not complain much save for the moment when the waiter breaks it to her that they do not have her favourite beer. It puts her in a sour mood, and it is only an hour and four shots of vodka—which Marlene begs her to drink—later that she takes off her cardigan and decides to play billiards with a group of guys who kept insisting the girls join them.

“Drooling doesn’t suit you.” The music is loud, and Lily has to lean extra close to Marlene.

“I wasn’t,” Marlene tries to say, but with her eyes still glued to Dorcas, it does little to convince Lily.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m positive she was checking you out a few minutes ago.”

“When I walked over with the shots?”

“Yes,” Lily confirms.

“Hm,” is all Marlene says as she continues to observe Dorcas who has since—in a span of mere minutes —switched to playing for cash. She sips her pink drink through a swirly straw, and nearly chokes on it when Dorcas winks at her before taking her turn.

“Definitely not staring, then.” The comment earns Lily a punch on the shoulder, but once she finishes her cocktail, Marlene stands up and joins Dorcas. She is twirling around the billiards table, teasing the guys, while simultaneously touching Dorcas every ten seconds. It leaves Lily all alone at the table—Mary’s left to go to the toilet and is yet to return—and, not wanting to attract the attention of any nearby males, she focuses on her phone, where, she notices, Sirius has left her a dozen of frantic texts.

_why is mary ignoring me?_

_is mary ignoring me?_

_have I done something?_

_oh, are you guys doing the girls’ night… can I come?_

_okay, there are a total of four places where you could be that’s not your flat_

The next couple of texts are from Remus.

_You have been warned, we’re coming to the Lounge_

_You’re not here_

_You have been warned, we’re on our way to sleek_

_Aaaaand nevermind_

_Swanky it is_

Lily groans, she can’t leave her spot because all of their things are here, and she can’t call Mary to warn her because she has confiscated her phone. For the lack of a better option she texts Remus.

_Do no, I repeat do not come here. Do anything!!!_

He replies within seconds.

_Too late._

Mary does not handle her liquor well. She can handle wine or beer. She can even handle cocktails if she eats enough beforehand. She can’t, however, handle her shots, which is why Lily rarely allows her —and she means this in the least controlling manner possible —to have even one. It has become common knowledge among the group that Mary plus a couple of fruity shots equate to regrettable hook ups and the least lucky member of the group having to babysit her.

Unfortunately, Mary finds her way towards the bar, where she utilizes her talents in an appropriate Friday night manner.

“Hey, there,” she grins at the bartender, and leans over the bar.

He is far from being handsome. Some might call him cute, but Mary’s standards are very high and all she wants is a free drink or two. “Hello,” he greets her and she is convinced the sound of his voice turned her off for at least a week.

The smile remains plastered on her face though; the lengths she will go for a free drink, “You seem busy.”

“I’ll make time,” the bloke replies, clearly interested. Mary cringes on the inside.

“Just for me?” The annoying giggle she produces makes the waiter smirk, and that is how Mary justifies the horrible half chuckle, half shriek she let out.

“Well,” he is pouring a glass of something behind the counter, “you have to make time for a pretty girl.” Oh, she wants to gag at the statement, but he follows it up by serving her a shot of dark, syrupy looking liquid.

“What is that,” her voice feels sore from yelling.

The bartender leans closer to her over the bar, and Mary leans backwards, but not far enough to indicate her dislike, “Drink up, babe.”

Cringe, cringe, cringe. Instead of gagging, she smiles, “Cheers.”

The bartender’s name is John, which seems generic enough. He is twenty-seven and has no further prospect in life. After her third drink he tells her, while ignoring at least five other customers, that he aims to be a world renowned DJ. Mary smiles and nods, and feigns interest. She tells him she went to a festival once and enjoyed it. It is only a half-lie, she did go, she simply did not like it all that much. John tells her he can bring a girlfriend to his DJ-ing gigs, but the organisers never allow him to bring male friends. In a strange, borderline creepy turn of events, he follows up by spinning a wild story about the time he flew out to the Canary Islands to be a DJ at a weekend festival, and how it would have been lovely to have her there with him.

But Mary is five drinks in, and she has not paid for any of them, so she twirls a strand of her hair around her index finger and giggles. If a hand on her waist should surprise her, Mary is too drunk to react right away. And if, by the frown on bartender John’s face, she should realize that something is off, it takes her five seconds to register the person next to her.

“Oh,” is her drunk response, and Sirius—who is nearly as drunk as she is—smiles goofily at her.

“Found you.”

“I wasn’t hiding.”

His fingers are burning against the bare skin of her waist, and she is thankful that she wore the crop top.

“Oh,” he motions to the bartender, who, utterly disappointed, moved onto the next victim, to serve two more shots to Sirius and Mary. “So, you were just intent on ignoring me then?”

“Lily took my phone,” if she were to lean in any closer, her forehead would rest against his.

“Why?”

“I wasn’t supposed to text you.”

“Good job, you haven’t,” he smirks, and raises the glass to his lips before tipping his head backwards. When he turns to face her, Sirius’ lips are set in a straight line. “Cheers, MacDonald.” He nudges the shot towards her.

The drink burns her throat far less than the first one had, and when Sirius tries to remove his hand from her waist, she sloppily fumbles to keep it in place.

“I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

“But it makes the sex better?”

The grip she has on his arm tightens, her nails leaving marks. She watches him wince, “Arse.”

“Hm.” Sirius scrapes his nails lightly against her back in an act of torturous revenge, and over her ribcage, until he feels the goose bumps rise on her skin. “Come on.”

Mary does not question him when he tugs her through the crowded bar, nor does she hesitate when they step outside onto an empty terrace area. She briefly considers asking him what the hell is going on when he sits down on a bench, but he pulls her forward. Her knees collide with the wooden surface before she unceremoniously straddles him.

Just like that, she is back where the torturous experience began a week ago, straddling Sirius as her wanting hands tug him closer until there is barely any room left between them. Once again, she applauds herself for ditching her bra that evening, even if it meant giving up on the fantastic push-up effect. The palms of her hands are on fire, though she can hardly even feel them in her drunken stupor. Mary is certain she broke a nail while tugging the leather jacket off Sirius, and she wishes he would let his hands roam somewhere other than just her waist, but it appears the idiot has decided to become a Grade A gentleman, save for the whole humping it out on a dark public terrace business.

In the middle of it all she wonders what she likes best, the way he trails his lips up her neck and down her jawline, or when he bites her lips enough to elicit a soft moan, but hardly with such force as to make it hurt. Sirius tastes like liquor and peppermint, and when Mary grows fed up with his manners and draws his hands up to her boobs with a sense of urgency he can’t help but chuckle and look at her with a mischievous smirk.

It takes all of her self-control (and thinking of what her mother would say) for Mary to keep the damned top on. Public indecency has never quite been her thing. Then again, she was not into Sirius when she met him either, but here they are, him being a gentleman—contrary to her first assessment of the bloke—and her hardly managing to keep her top on. Oh, how the tables have turned.

Inside the bar, Lily goes mad with worry until Remus joins her.

“I don’t think we want to find them right now,” he tells her.

Remus is a great mate, and if one ever needed proof, it would be the fact that when he arrives at her table, he is already carrying a Martini for her.

“I love you,” she yells at him, as the tune of a familiar 90s bop fills the air. At the billiards table, Marlene and Dorcas have abandoned the game altogether and are now drunkenly sword fighting with their cues.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reviewing the first chapter (you're lovely). Hope you like this one :D


	3. spring roll with the punches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the beginning: (thanks to lovely Fru) take a shot every time they mention spring rolls. (update: 23.05. on hiatus until July)

During the past few months, Sirius has developed a nasty habit of disrespecting people’s private space and personal hours. Lily does not have the time, nor the energy, to attempt pinpointing when and how it happened, or whether she contributed to it. She can admit that perhaps—when it all started—she was not discouraging him completely. In fact, she might—when occasion asks for it—encourage such behaviour without a second thought, which could quite possibly be how Sirius got used to it.

The first time it happens, she can tell something is wrong. Lily opts to spend most of her winter holidays that year in town due to the staggering amount of coursework. She leaves town only to attend the traditional Evans lunch for a couple of hours on Christmas Day. When she returns to her flat, she is more than surprised to find Sirius sitting on the doormat, playing games on his phone.

“Uh, hi?”

“Oh, good,” he smiles. “My battery was just about to die.”

“Uh, Sirius,” she starts softly while unlocking the door, “what are you doing here?” The warmth in the flat floods her freezing limbs when she walks inside with him following close after.

“Had a bit of a quarrel with parental figures,” he grimaces. “I would have gone to Remus’, but they have family over… and you’re alone.”

Lily stares at him because she’s not sure what to say.

“And I’m alone. And it’s Christmas.” The small shrug of his shoulders nearly breaks her heart. “I can leave.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “No. It’s fine, I was going to watch _Home Alone_ anyway.”

“A classic.”

“Why don’t you set up the TV, and I’ll make us some hot cocoa?”

He goes about setting up her laptop, connecting it to the TV and browsing through the movies.

“I lied.” She is handing him a mug of cocoa and he feels bad for being dishonest. “I may have caused a bit of a scene. And I may have been kicked out of the family lunch before the main course.”

“Oh.”

“Also, I left my keys at my parents’, so I’m going to, I mean if I can…,” he motions vaguely to her sofa.

“Sure, yes.” Lily would like to have a word or two with his bitch of a mother. He told her once before that his father was no better, but his mother is the one with a flare for cruel dramatics.

“I miss James,” he mumbles, stirring his cocoa.

“The imaginary friend,” she smiles when the comment elicits a chuckle.

“He’s real,” Sirius would nudge her shoulder, but both of their mugs are full to the brim with scalding hot cocoa, and he assumes the sensation of it spilling all over them would be far from pleasant. “You’d like him, I know you would.”

“Why?” Curiosity gets the best of her. Besides, he is having a bad Christmas so the least she can do is listen, even if it is about his presumably imaginary friend.

“I don’t know.” It’s just a feeling he has, really. “You’re sort of alike, in some ways. And a bit different, first of all because he’s, you know, a bloke.”

“Never would have guessed that. James is such a girl’s name.”

“Plus,” he glares at her playfully. “You both tell really shitty jokes, all the time.”

“I invite you into my home. I make you hot cocoa. I let you watch Home Alone with me—”

“You haven’t even pressed play yet.”

“… And this is how you treat me.”

Then she presses play before he can respond, and Sirius is far too entertained by Kevin McCallister’s cleverness in booby-trapping to think about the rotten Christmas Day he was having up until that moment. The following morning—or rather, closer to afternoon—, after they’ve had cereal for lunch, before he leaves the flat, Sirius asks Lily a strange question.

“Lily,” she has just put on a facemask, which looks absolutely ridiculous and he can’t help but laugh. “Sorry. Anyway, your ears are pierced, right?”

“Correct.”

“And you’re a girl,” she nods. “So, you are into diamonds, right?”

“What?”

He shuffles through the inner pocket of his coat. “Here,” he places two diamond earrings in her open palm. “They’re my mum’s.”

She merely switches from staring at him in shock to staring at the pair of beautiful earrings he gave her.

“I stole them, probably out of spite. She won’t miss them,” he pauses, one foot out of the door. “What I’m trying to say is… Merry Christmas.”

Lily gawks at the pair of earrings for at least fifteen minutes after Sirius has left. In the end she stores them with her expensive jewellery; a necklace her parents bought her for her graduation and a bracelet her high school sweetheart gifted her for their second anniversary.

 

* * *

 

The fourth—or fifth, she stops counting after a while—time it happens, Lily suspects he has been tipped off, once again, by Mary, who has developed a tendency of inviting Sirius over as if she owns the flat. Not that Lily minds at all; it just seems extremely suspicious. She asks Mary that day whether the two of them are dating. Mary replies with a firm no, yet Sirius somehow arrives half an hour after she does, carrying Lily’s favourite cake. She throws a suspicious glance towards Mary, who appears to be too focused on her phone to even greet the guest.

“I brought food!” Sirius exclaims.

“You’ve got to stop popping up unannounced.” Lily says, but her tone is far from convincing, and the way she devours a slice of cake in less than a minute does very little to support her point.

“Mary said I could come over,” he frowns.

“Did she now?” If Mary were the type of person to be easily embarrassed, her cheeks would be turning pink right now. At least that’s what Lily thinks.

Instead, her friend looks up at her with an innocent smile on her face. “I told him we were hanging out… and did not forbid him from coming over?”

“You’re lucky you brought my favourite cake.”

Sirius smirks, “Actually, Mary told me to bring _that_ specific cake,” he reveals in spite of Mary’s frantic motions that indicate he should not. Luckily for her, Lily is too busy enjoying her cake to be upset.

From then on, it grows into a habit, and soon enough Lily realizes that she would need at least three more hands to count the number of times he has appeared on her doorway unannounced. His saving grace, ever since that first time he delivered her favourite cake, has only been the food he rarely fails to bring.

 

* * *

 

 

Lily wakes up at noon, groggy. The fridge is empty, save for a single egg and a small serving of cream cheese. The cheese has gone bad, though, she realizes upon tasting some. Her stomach growls as she throws it away. The bread box is empty; she ate her last banana the morning before, and has not restocked the yoghurt since Thursday.

“How do you stay so thin, Lily,” she talks to herself mockingly in the quiet of the flat. “I forget to buy food, which something everybody needs to, you know, survive.”

Her rescue comes first in the form of a forgotten apple she finds on the living room coffee table. The bowl it is in usually only serves a decorative purpose, and Lily wonders briefly how the fruit got there. She eats it quickly, relishing in the mixture of sweet and sour taste. It is not enough, though. She has not eaten in nearly sixteen hours, and an apple can’t satisfy her hunger.

Just as she is about to come to terms with the fact that she will, if she wishes not to die from undernourishment, indeed have to get dressed and step outside of her apartment, her saviour arrives. Her heart lurches when—upon hearing the annoying sound of her doorbell—she sees Sirius’ face through the peephole. The smell of Chinese take-out makes her mouth water as she opens the door. He greets her with an endearing wink.

“I come with food, please let me stay.”

“Thank God!” Lily grabs one of the plastic bags from his hand. She heads to the kitchen, yelling over the shoulder, “Lock the door, will you?”

She hears the noisy click of the lock, and then Sirius joins her in unpacking the food on the narrow kitchen island. “You’re eager.”

“I have not eaten in nearly a day,” she explains, scouring through copious amounts of food. “I think I might love you.”

“First of all, of course you do,” he grins. “Second of all, Remus will arrive in half an hour, so we have to leave some food for him.”

“But surely not the spring rolls?” Lily asks, setting aside the delicacy.

“Not the spring rolls,” Sirius assures her, taking hold of the remote.

The TV switches from channel to channel under Sirius’ command. It nearly drives Lily insane, and when she finally can’t take it anymore she steals the remote back from him. They—mostly Lily—settle on watching a documentary on large cats.

“I can’t see why you wouldn’t let me watch the penguin documentary,” Sirius complains. They are both seated at the kitchen island, backs twisted round in order to see the telly. If Lily’s grandmother saw them sitting like that, she would give the two a lecture on healthy posture and the dangers of scoliosis.

“That one will be over in ten minutes,” she says absentmindedly as the cheetah on the television catches its prey.

“Ugh,” Sirius shudders. “Cats.”

“Shut up, you dog person.”

“It’s not by choice,” he opens another container of spring rolls. They seem to have become the main course. “Cats just really hate me for some reason.”

“They can sense your animosity. Aw,” Lily coos at the screen as a group of baby cheetahs wobbles around. “So fluffy.”

“Cat lady.”

“And proud of it,” she grabs two more spring rolls, feeling glad that she is wearing loose pyjama bottoms.

“You’re a pig,” Sirius tells her when, a mere second later, she spills a sizeable amount of sweet and sour sauce on the floor.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Lily chants as she hops away to fetch some napkins.

“Who raised you?”

“My mum and dad, and they’ve done a splendid job at it,” she says, cleaning the floor first with a wet wipe and then with a napkin. “There, good as new.”

“I apologize,” Sirius says with faux sincerity in between two bites. “You are obviously marriage material.”

Lily smacks him on the bicep and reaches for another spring roll. “Oh, there are only four left? But I only had three… and there was over a dozen?” She glares at him accusingly.

Sirius smirks, “What can I say,” reaching for the rolls. “You are a terribly slow eater.” He is not cruel enough to take everything that’s left. In fact, he even goes as far as letting Lily have an extra spring roll because—as he puts it—he is feeling generous.

“Sometimes you’re a shitty friend, you know that?”

He guesses as much. “I brought you food”, he points out.

Lily can hardly contradict him on that, so she shrugs, chewing contently on a spring roll. She tries to feel bad for Remus, who will be left without the precious delights, as she eats her fifth one. The flicker of guilt passes instantly when she mournfully bites into the last delicious roll, savouring it as much as possible.

“So,” she is tossing away the empty takeout containers. “Have you heard from Mary?”

“Hm?”

“Mary,” Lily holds a pair of scissors in her hand, not with the intention to appear intimidating—although it works—but to cut open the second plastic bag. The knot on it seems to have been tied too tightly. “My dear friend, whom you convinced to follow you in your debaucheries. She almost lost her top and was nearly accused of public indecency? Ring a bell?” She finally manages to weasel out a container of food. Inside, there are noodles, presumably some chicken, and once she spots peanuts, Lily is satisfied with Sirius’ choice of food.

“Yes, yes,” he waves his hand dismissively.

“Did you, then?”

“I can’t talk about that with _you._ ”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he says it as if it’s the most obvious thing. “You’re her _best friend_.”

“Oh, please,” Lily scoffs.

“Nope,” Sirius shakes his head.

“Spoilsport.”

They bicker back and forth. Lily tries to convince him she will not, under any circumstance, relay their conversation to Mary. Sirius, on the other hand, calls her a temptress when she offers to bake him a cake—he is not quite aware that she lacks the ingredients necessary to do so—if he just tells her his side of the story. He is saved by the doorbell, which reminds him of the times in high school when the teacher was about to ask him a question he absolutely did not know the answer to, and then—in the absolute last moment—the bell would ring and class would be dismissed.

Lily opens the door and Remus walks in, carrying two plastic bags that resemble the ones Sirius brought.

“Hello,” he greets.

“You brought food?” Lily asks in confusion.

Remus frowns, “I thought I was supposed to?”

From his spot at the kitchen island, Sirius laughs. “No, I said I would get the food. Spending the family money and all.”

“Oh,” his friend examines the two bags of Chinese takeout he brought. “Well, I can hardly return this now.”

Lily beckons him closer, “Come here, let’s see what we can do about that.” She takes hold of the bag in his left hand. “And while we’re at it, has Sirius told you anything about Mary?”

“Don’t,” Sirius points a finger at her warningly. “Besides, he doesn’t know a thing.”

The other bloke confirms this, nodding his head vehemently. “Zero clues. I’m traumatized enough by Friday’s events.”

“Oh, come on, Lupin, you barely saw a bit of boob,” Remus wants to interrupt Sirius and explain that not only did he see a bit of boob, but specifically two breasts and—he suspects—Sirius’ pants undone and halfway off. “What’s the big deal?”

“There was definitely _more_ than one boob.”

“And you were about to publicly indecently shag,” Lily quips.

“Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I am a gentleman, and Mary took advantage of my fragile drunken state.”

“What fragile state,” Lily asks but leaves him no time to answer. “Oh.”

“What?” The two blokes say in unison.

“Sirius,” she looks at him pointedly. “Remus brought spring rolls.”

While Sirius’ mouth stretches into a wide grin, Remus’ merely stares at the two of them in confusion. “Yeah, so?”

“I mean,” Sirius begins, suppressing laughter. “I _completely_ forgot to get those.” While he is saying it, Lily makes sure that the empty plastic containers, which previously most certainly did contain a load of spring rolls, are not visible in the trashcan. She fixes the lid and Remus remains none the wiser.

“I got plenty,” he says, “but Peter said he’ll drop by later.”

“He doesn’t need the rolls, though,” Lily says and reaches over to open the container and grab one. “Right?”

Remus smirks, “I don’t think he even likes them that much.” They both grin at Sirius.

“Besides, there’s hardly enough for the three of us.” There are probably twenty-four spring rolls to share between them.

“What Peter does not know can’t hurt him.” Remus concludes the exchange before taking a spring roll of his own and biting into it.

The three of them devour a good portion of the food, and when the documentary on big cats is over, Sirius calls dibs on the remote. Lily protests strongly, while Remus pretends to be bothered but gives in when his friend decides to stop his channel surfing on a classic Bear Grylls episode.

It only causes Lily to protest more. “It’s all fake anyway,” she argues in vain.

“Still educational,” Remus offers.

“He drinks piss!”

“A valuable source of minerals,” Sirius retorts. “Which you would know, if you would just pay attention.”

“Why do I allow this?”

Remus has to finish a sizeable bite of food before he can answer. “I think it’s because we bribe you with food?”

Sirius shrugs as if to indicate that he does not disagree entirely. “And we’re wickedly handsome,” he adds.

“Disregard that,” Lupin rolls his eyes.

“I will.”

“Honestly, Remus, you’re an attractive bloke, even if you could use some extra definition.”

“Oh, my… that’s disgusting,” Lily says as the man on the screen crawls inside a camel cadaver in the name of survival.

“See,” Sirius points at the TV. “Now we know this!”

“We did not need to know that,” she says, and Remus has to agree that she’s got a point.

“She’s right, that’s disgusting.”

Peter arrives nearly two hours later carrying a batch of brownies and Lily can’t help but feel bad that they did not save him at least one spring roll.

 

* * *

 

 

On Wednesday morning, Lily runs into Dorcas who sometimes, when she feels like it, decides to visit her calculus lessons.

“Morning,” Dorcas mumbles in her general direction.

“Hi,” Lily smiles, uncharacteristically for anyone who has to listen to Calculus 2 so early in the day.

“What’s got you so chipper?”

“I got an e-mail,” she grins.

“Good for you.”

“Rude.”

“Go on.” They walk slowly towards the lecture hall. “I’m listening.”

“You know the small library just down the street?”

“The public one?”

“Yes.”

“I do.”

The two girls enter the hall, which is already occupied by a large group of students. They take their seats somewhere in the middle, far enough to go unnoticed, but close enough to hear the lecture.

“Anyway, I put in a request for this book I wanted to read a while ago. And they told me they would probably order it if it fits the budget, and such. I’m not sure how it works precisely, but!”

The pause Lily makes for dramatic effect, and to curb her excitement over a simple book, it earns her an eye roll from Dorcas. “I hate it when you end a sentence on a cliff-hanger.”

“But!” Lily grins, “They’ve sent me an e-mail half an hour ago, and apparently they did acquire a couple of copies.”

“Great.” Sometimes Lily wishes Dorcas’ voice could sound less sarcastic. She knows the other girl is being genuine, but she has a way of delivering her words in a way that makes just about anything she says simply drip with sarcasm whether she intends for it or not.

“Anyway, apparently there’s two more copies left that haven’t been checked out.” When Lily talks about things that excite her, she has a tendency to do that very animatedly. “And I can go pick one up afterwards and enjoy my book, because Mary has betrayed our evening study session for a shag with Sirius.” Lily finishes, and waits for a reaction.

“That’s nice,” is not the emotional response she is looking for.

“Nice?”

“Yeah,” Dorcas nods. “Oh, was I supposed to act surprised?”

“Not really.”

“It’s been a long time coming.” They both nod in understanding. To Lily’s disappointment, Dorcas seems to be far less invested in the sex lives of their dear friends. Lily will just have to talk to Remus—who has somehow proven to be an excellent gossip—to satisfy her very real gossiping needs.

“Yeah, well,” she continues to break the silence. “Anyway, I want that book.”

“Why didn’t you just buy your own copy?”

“Not all of us are whiz kids who have a scholarship, Cas.”

“My bad.”

A girl sitting in the row below them shushes the two rudely as the lecturer walks in. Dorcas scoffs in annoyance, whispering an insult loud enough for the girl to hear it too, and spends most of the lecture doodling and subsequently erasing the doodles. She wipes away the tiny strings left behind from the rubber eraser onto the girl in front of them. Lily can’t say she is utterly shocked by her behaviour, nor does she disapprove. She is actually far more impressed by Dorcas’ level of dedication.

When the annoying girl stands up, the tiny bits of rubber seem to be stuck in random spots in her dark hair. Lily almost laughs, but Dorcas kicks her in the shin, so instead she yelps before returning the favour.

“Ouch,” Dorcas frowns. “You’re violent.”

“You’re petty,” retorts Lily, motioning towards the girl that sat before them.

“She deserved it.”

“Maybe she’s a kind person.” But Lily knows she’s not. The few classes she saw her in, the girl always sat alone and looked down on anyone who dared ask a question when they failed to understand the material. “Okay, fine, she’s more than likely a bitch. I’m like, ninety percent certain of it.”

Dorcas beams at her, full lips spreading into a proud grin. “Knew it.”

“Don’t be so self-satisfied.” They step outside and the sunshine hits Dorcas’ face, highlighting the freckles that span across her nose and cheeks. Lily’s deep red hair appears brighter, and she regrets not putting on sunscreen or taking her sunglasses with her. It’s a beautiful day, she concludes, while Dorcas frowns at the sun. She, too, did not bring her shades. “Walk me to the library?”

“I can’t,” the other girl says, an apologetic smile on her face. “I promised Marlene I would meet her for an early lunch.”

“That’s an extremely early lunch,” Lily notes. “It’s barely 11 o’clock.”

“She has classes the entire afternoon,” Dorcas accompanies her response with a shrug.

“Have a nice meal, I guess.”

“Hope your book is still there,” she winks, before turning on her heels and leaving her.

“Don’t jinx it!”, Lily yells after her.

Dorcas merely waves. “Wouldn’t dream of it!”

Except that, apparently, she does jinx it.

Lily lets out a string of well thought out profanities—in her head only, and directed at herself—as she realizes, just as she is about to check the book out, that her library card is in her other wallet. Owning two wallets isn’t her choice; she owns them because she has to. Lily, being an almost-near-functioning adult, is burdened by at least ten different plastic cards, so she keeps the ones she doesn’t use or need on a daily basis in a separate, much smaller wallet.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes for the umpteenth time to the sweet librarian. “I’ll just take this,” she holds the book tightly against her chest, “and put it in the temporary reservation section. And I’ll be back in a jiffy!”

The old lady barely has the time to respond (“Sure, dear,” she says in a soft voice) before Lily heads towards the centre—not a physical centre, as much as it is one formed by the placing of the bookshelves—of the small library, which is ironically closer to the back than it is to the front. The large bookshelf is nearly empty with only a couple of books lounging about on the shelf labelled _‘reservations only’_. Very few people seem to use it because it is cleared every shift change, but it comes in handy from time to time in situations such as Lily’s. She carefully places the book on the shelf with a promise that she will come back for it soon.

Except when she returns the book is mysteriously gone. Disappeared into thin air. Lily checks the shelf carefully, but there is no trace of it. She checks above, and then she checks below, she even checks on the opposite side of the entire bookshelf, thinking that she might have mistakenly placed it on the wrong shelf, or the wrong side even. Lack of sleep would explain such a scenario, but she has managed to get at least eight hours of sleep every night for the past few days, so it barely makes sense that she would so carelessly misplace the book.

Besides, Lily thinks to herself, she left it right there.

There is nothing she is more certain of at that moment than the fact that she most definitely left the book under the ‘ _reservations only’_ section. Lily knows this for sure as she stares at the offensively empty shelf. The library card is now in her hand, but she no longer has any use for it because her book is gone. Vanished into thin air! Which means a member of her adorable, sweet library is a horrible thief who does not respect the rules of the institution. It is a disaster of _horrific_ proportions, and if she weren’t a naturally composed person, Lily may have had a mental breakdown at that very moment.

Instead, she reprimands herself for not ignoring the library rules and simply asking the nice librarian lady to hold the book for her. She would have surely understood, after all it was the last unchecked copy.

Briefly, she considers leaving the library without a book, but thinks better of it, so she sets out on a search for a quality read. Then, while she sulks reading the titles of other books, in the back of the library, she spots the culprit. He may be handsome but Lily, although she has not stopped thinking about having a proper, life changing shag ever since Sirius mentioned it a while ago, cannot be distracted by an evil man’s handsome face.

She will not be seduced by his beautiful features when there, in his hand, is _her_ book he is nonchalantly holding.

“Give me my book!”, she approaches, the stranger clearly being taken aback.

“ _Your_ book?”

She nods, finger pointing accusingly at the book in question. “ _My_ book, yes.”

“I’ve just checked this one out,” the guy says, his dumb hipster glasses just making his face even more handsome, and Lily has to kick herself mentally for noticing how perfect his teeth are. Having had to wear braces as a teen–something she still feels traumatized by–, she can never forego appreciating other people’s wonderful smiles.

“Give me my book, you thieving… arse!” Offence is the best defence.

“Excuse me?” He raises his brows. “It’s literally not even yours. It was on some random shelf!”

Lily lets out a soft yelp of frustration, and then tugs on his arm. The stranger does not protest and lets her drag him into the reservations section, seemingly not comprehending what Lily means when she animatedly gestures towards the shelf.

“Yeah,” he nods, “it was on _that_ shelf!”

“I put it there for safekeeping!” He does, however, have a few objections to her waving the library card she had to go home to fetch dangerously close to his face, so he lightly smacks her hand away. “Because I forgot my library card.”

“It’s a check out shelf!” He knows this because it says so on a sign right above the short row of books, which he points to, growing more and more annoyed.

Lily’s eyes widen. “Read the fine print,” she points at a miniscule _‘reservations only’_ sign. “ _That’s_ where I was storing it for safekeeping!” The shrillness of her voice surprises even Lily. It passes through her head that she may sound entirely insane at that moment, but she cannot bring herself to care about anything but the book she so dearly wants to read.

“You’re insane,” the handsome stranger is slowly, but surely, starting to fear for his life.

“I need it,” she implores, though puppy dog eyes probably won’t work, as the attractive rascal has just witnessed her utter insanity less than a minute ago.

“I need it _more_ ,” he holds the book closer to his chest while steadily backing away.

“You don’t even go here!”

“This is not _Mean Girls_! It’s a public library,” and Lily has to admit he has a point there, but before she can concur he is waving his own library card in her face. “Look, I’ve made a card _just_ for this book!”

She is touched for a moment that he seems to love the book so much. But there is no room for soft sentiments in war. “I saw it first.”

“I need it for tonight,” he is adamant. “My best mate is kicking me out of his flat—and mind you, I just got here like, _yesterday_ —anyway, he’s kicking me out because he is going to shag the woman of his life, or something weirdly romantic like that. All I have is _this_ shitty phone,” he pulls out an old Nokia, “and no laptop, and my dumb best mate has a gaming setup so, no, I can’t just borrow his!”

“I don’t care who your best friend is shagging,” she truly does not. “I’ve had the most awful day,” she lies, hoping to gain some sympathy, “and I want to read that book, and I’ve been looking forward to reading it ever since I’ve put in my damn request for the library to get it a month ago!” Lily has never whisper screamed at a stranger before, but this one seems to deserve it. Him and his stupidly attractive face. “I have _no_ social life, no potential boyfriend, everyone has someone,” she feels the prickling in her eyes. “I have never shagged anyone, and I lie about it all the time, and all I have to go home to today is my frozen pizza and this goshdarn book.”

_Oh no, oh no, oh no. Oh, yes?_

Then she starts crying. If she still had any ability left to feel embarrassed, she’d be petrified. Instead, Lily simply full on sobs in front of this random, handsome bloke whom she has just admitted to that she has never shagged anyone in her entire life, which—she completely understands—is especially sad and embarrassing.

“Are you… crying?” She can hear the panic in his voice, and sees him shuffle from one foot to another as if he’s considering approaching her. All previous accounts warn him not to, so he settles on observing the beautiful, sobbing girl with mild terror on his face. “Please don’t,” he would beg on his knees for her to stop. “Please don’t cry, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Please, just,” he pats her on the shoulder varily while maintaining a safe distance from the girl, who he now suspects to be clearly, clinically insane.

Lily sobs again, and sees—through her tear-stained vision—this beautiful specimen of a man nervously run his hands through his hair, messing it up.

“You’re not trying to, you know… manipulate me into giving you the book?” He regrets asking when Lily’s crying only intensifies, and he is suddenly faced with an important decision.

James Potter, faced with an impossible and terrifying choice, does what his mother definitely _never_ taught him to do.

He runs away from the sobbing girl and justifies it by convincing himself she is looney. He runs away, book tucked into the pocket of his leather jacket, and prays that he will not have to see her preferably ever again. The shame and the guilt would, more than likely, kill him.

In the library, next to the shelf where James left her, Lily Evans wipes the tears off her face. She frowns at the mascara stains on her palms and purses her lips.

“Damn it,” she mutters to herself, heading towards the toilets. Lily could have sworn he looked like a bloke who would give her the book if she cried enough. Now she wasted a perfectly good breakdown on nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, glad you've made it to the end, hope you're not too drunk. Please leave a review, and to make it more fun:
> 
> 1) Do you like spring rolls?  
> 2) Penguins or big cats documentary?  
> 3) Isn't James wonderful?

**Author's Note:**

> Uhm, this is very super really new for me so please leave reviews (and if I have a shitton of mistakes, pls let me know bcs I suck and can't proof read it on my own).
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy?


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